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This has been nagging me.
May. 23rd, 2009 01:21 pmSo, the numbers show that The United States of America is about 4% of the world's population, but that we consume 25% of the world's resources. The implications of this are quite simple - we are stealing from the rest of the world to satisfy our consumer culture. If the rest of the world were to live like middle class Americans, we would burn through this planet in what, maybe 20 years? No usable water, no minerals, no petroleum, pollution so bad that growing food is all but impossible?
This leaves us with a bit of a conundrum. Obviously the rest of the world can not attain what we expect as a standard of living. But who here is willing to drop your standard of living to match closer to what the majority of the world has? Yeah, I didn't think so.
We can see hints of this most prominently in the labor markets. With labor markets becoming more global, we have seem wages in America drop (no real growth in over 30 years - in fact, adjusted for inflation, wages have dropped - thus prices for things have gone up 8 to 15 times in the last 30 years but we're actually making LESS money.) As more and more corporations move jobs overseas where there is an abundance of cheap labor, labor prices world-wide will drop and the more this happens, the lower wages will go. Eventually, when wages hit a worldwide equilibrium point, the average wage will be what, maybe $1-to-2 per hour? If we're lucky? Do we all move into corporate barracks and shantytowns?
So where do we go? How do we continue to justify our lifestyle when it becomes so absolutely apparent that it is unsustainable and immoral? Obviously, this is a long-range problem with way too many factors to dive into in this little blog post, but really, think about it. Think about a global averaging of lifestyle. Without major advances in technology (specifically with efficiency and the environmental/sustainable aspects) things look very bleak indeed.
It was often said that the GenXers were going to be the first generation of Americans who could expect to have a standard of living lower than their parents, but that never really materialized. However, in the relatively near future, we can absolutely expect that to happen. And not just a little lower, but full-on, major degradations of living standards. I know I'm taking the long view on this, but shit this nags the hell out of me.
This leaves us with a bit of a conundrum. Obviously the rest of the world can not attain what we expect as a standard of living. But who here is willing to drop your standard of living to match closer to what the majority of the world has? Yeah, I didn't think so.
We can see hints of this most prominently in the labor markets. With labor markets becoming more global, we have seem wages in America drop (no real growth in over 30 years - in fact, adjusted for inflation, wages have dropped - thus prices for things have gone up 8 to 15 times in the last 30 years but we're actually making LESS money.) As more and more corporations move jobs overseas where there is an abundance of cheap labor, labor prices world-wide will drop and the more this happens, the lower wages will go. Eventually, when wages hit a worldwide equilibrium point, the average wage will be what, maybe $1-to-2 per hour? If we're lucky? Do we all move into corporate barracks and shantytowns?
So where do we go? How do we continue to justify our lifestyle when it becomes so absolutely apparent that it is unsustainable and immoral? Obviously, this is a long-range problem with way too many factors to dive into in this little blog post, but really, think about it. Think about a global averaging of lifestyle. Without major advances in technology (specifically with efficiency and the environmental/sustainable aspects) things look very bleak indeed.
It was often said that the GenXers were going to be the first generation of Americans who could expect to have a standard of living lower than their parents, but that never really materialized. However, in the relatively near future, we can absolutely expect that to happen. And not just a little lower, but full-on, major degradations of living standards. I know I'm taking the long view on this, but shit this nags the hell out of me.
